On Thursday 9th November members of West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs were monitoring the Warwickshire Hunt who were hunting in Birdingbury, Warwickshire. Whilst they were filming the hounds two male hunt supporters approached the saboteurs and became increasingly aggressive. One of them hit one of the cameras before punching a female saboteur in the face. When her back is turned on him he starts shoving her and then pushes her to the ground. When she challenges him about him hitting her he can be heard saying “you can hit me if you want, I don’t give a f***”

Back on the road one hunt supporter apologies and says “that should never have happened” and then agrees that despite their differences the saboteurs have never been violent towards them.

The Saboteurs then challenge the Warwickshire Hunt senior master Charmaine Green and ask her if she thinks it acceptable to hit women, a female passenger in the back says “you're not a woman, you're a monster” and “that’s nothing” referring to the blood coming from the saboteurs eye.

A spokesperson for West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs said “We were concerned that the hunt were hunting a fox and that the hounds were heading towards a busy main road. Suddenly two hunt supporters approach us and start shouting aggressively before attacking us. It shows what type of people fox hunters are that they think it acceptable for men to attack women, punch them and then shove them over from behind. He latter even admits on camera to what he had done.”

Lee Moon, spokesperson for the Hunt Saboteurs Association, stated: ”Fox hunting, by its very nature, is a violent activity and it is only a short leap from using violence towards animals to using violence against people. Just like they try to justify their violence towards foxes by vilifying them as pests they try to justify their violence towards sabs by calling them monsters. This was a completely unprovoked attack by a very violent hunt. Fox hunting is a breeding ground for normalising violence with some very questionable attitudes towards women. We ask the question who are the real monsters here?”

After being punched in the face the female saboteur received injuries to her eye and had to attend A&E at Warwick Hospital.

On Saturday the 28th October the Surrey Union Hunt held their opening meet at Gosterwood Manor Farm, Ockley near Dorking. As well as approx 100 hunt riders there were also 20 hunt saboteurs and 20 Surrey police officers present. The police spent the entire day following sabs around and were completely disinterested in what the hunt were up to.

In the middle of the afternoon the hunts hounds, who were supposedly following an artificial trail, rioted into a private garden, terrorising some semi-tame deer and a domestic cat. Members of the hunt then trespassed into the garden to retrieve the hounds. The householders were furious about the hunt incursion onto their property and came out to remonstrate with members of the hunt. Officers from Surrey police stood idly by and did nothing to help whilst this was going on.

Lee Moon, Spokesperson for the Hunt Saboteurs Association, stated: “The Surrey Union claim to follow artificial trails. If this was the case what were they doing with their hounds in a private garden terrorising a family's pet. It's a shame that Surrey police don't spend more time policing the real countryside terrorists rather than the hunt sabs who are doing their job for them. Well done to these brave landowners for standing up to the hunt. We're sure there are many more who don't want the hunt on their land but are too scared to say anything.”

On 25th February this year hunt saboteurs attended a meet of Britain's most convicted hunt, the Crawley and Horsham foxhounds. Press from the Huffington Post were also present.

Sabs were subject to abuse and assaults through out the day. One was arrested on a trumped up allegation of assault, which was later changed to Aggravated Trespass. The subsequent trial collapsed due to there being no evidence! Another sab was kicked in the face by a rider, but the police took no action.

After a long and difficult day due to extreme weather and swollen streams, a group of three sabs found Huntsman and Master Kim Richardson gathering hounds in the woods. Richardson approached and threatened to ram his hunting horn down a sab's throat. After Richardson threatened the sabs they retreated into the woods and dialled 999 as they were heavily outnumbered. No police attended following the emergency call, but the video of the incident was released on the Huffington Post and Richardson was subsequently interviewed.

After the voluntary interview, he was reported for an offence under Section 4a of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act as he had admitted threatening the sab, but he then pleaded not guilty and went to trial.

Today Richardson appeared at Horsham Magistrates Court in front of a district Judge. The defence tried, unsuccessfully to smear the character of the hunt saboteur. Both Richardson and his 'countryman' (Terrier boy) witness crumbled under cross examination, and Richardson was duly convicted of causing Alarm, Harassment and Distress. He was fined £2500 with £625 costs and a £130 victim surcharge.

Lee Moon, spokesperson for the Hunt Saboteurs Association, stated: “The sabs involved in the case would like to thank Sussex Police, the CPS and the District Judge for bringing Richardson, who has a long history of assaulting sabs, to justice at last. We wonder however if they would have been quite so keen if footage of the threats had not already been made public in the media. The Crawley and Horsham hunt are clearly a criminal enterprise, having been convicted multiple times for illegal hunting and assaults. It's about time the police looked at closing them down permanently, as they would other criminal gangs who exist purely to break the law.”

Footage obtained by the Hunt Saboteurs Association lays bare what really lies beyond the shooting industry’s propaganda. Millions of pheasants are intensively reared in game farms for nothing more than to be live targets for wealthy shooters.

The birds used for breeding are confined to tiny wire cages whereby artificial lighting is used to trick them into believing it is daylight and so increase egg production. The females, unable to escape the male’s repetitive mating, receive severe wounds to their backs and the industry’s answer to this is to fit them with ‘saddles’, pieces of cloth that allow the male to continue mating and thus again increase egg production. The extreme stress of life in a cage causes feather-pecking among the birds and cruel, plastic devises known in the industry as ‘masks’ are fitted into the pheasants’ beaks as a result. ‘Scalping’ also occurs. This is the name given to the wounds on a bird’s head that are a result of impacts with the top of the cage from many futile attempts to escape. Many birds do not survive this process and their bodies are simply dumped in large pits.

The chicks are artificially incubated in hatching facilities before being crammed into sheds where they spend seven to eight weeks before being packed into crates and sold off to shoots across the country. Again, the stress of this causes the birds to peck at each other and often resort to cannibalism. ‘Bits’ are clamped onto their nostrils in a cruel attempt to prevent damage to other birds and, as a result, lost profits.

Take action! Please tip us off with any information you may have about a local shoot, game farm or any other wildlife persecution. Together we can put an end to this vast, horrific industry.

The Kent and East Sussex Minkhounds met on Sunday at Puddledock , Kent.

Croydon hunt sabs were alerted to the hunt by a member of the public and one member was able to attend. On arriving they could hear holloas coming from the area of the fishing lakes and went into the field with their video camera. Several hunt supporters approached him and he called 999 to report illegal hunting. A woman who claimed to be the landowner hit the sab with her stick while he was speaking to the police and also stated that they were flushing mink. When the sab pointed out that this was illegal, another hunt supporter tried to deny she had said it! The Huntsman immediately gathered the hounds and headed back to their vehicles.

When Kent Police eventually arrived they talked to the hunt before approach the sab who had reported the crimes, refusing to arrest the woman for assault because she was 'too old' they also refused to investigate the allegation of illegal hunting. They also threatened to arrest the sab for breach of the peace if he went back into the field.

Undeterred, the sab followed the Huntsman and then watched from a safe distance as the hounds were boxed up and driven away.

Lee Moon, press officer of the Hunt Saboteurs Association, commented: "It is common for the Police to take the side of hunters, but to blatantly disregard the reporting of two crimes, and then threaten arrest takes their bias to a new level. The public in Kent should be asking why their police force is supporting hunting criminals."

Please contact Kent police and ask them why they are refusing to deal with reported wildlife crimes and assaults: